Ataraxia
by SS-HPFC
Summary: Because she's very small in the gaping darkness of that corridor. James/OC. For MaraudersLiveOnAsAnimagus.


**A/N:** for MaraudersLiveOnAsAnimagus – happy Christmas! I hope you like James and his little love Chloe! May you have a Christmas full of joy and presents and love and laughter.

* * *

Ataraxia  
why don't you rest your fragile bones a minute ago you looked alone - The Sunlight Through The Flags, Snow Patrol

* * *

He falls in love and it's terribly confusing because he always promised himself that he was never going to be this boy.

* * *

James Sirius Potter, seventeen years old. One quiet younger brother, one insanely infuriating younger sister. Gryffindor, Quidditch captain, black hair and brown eyes. Between him and his cousin Fred, they have over nine hundred detentions under their belts. (And they're proud of that, by the way.)

James has never had a problem with living up to his name before. He knows it drives Lily up the wall because she's constantly being compared to her grandmother, with those pretty dark red curls and those brightbright eyes – she rants and raves about it and she's got herself a tattoo (just to be different) that James was so angry about he wouldn't talk to her for three months.

But James… well, he's a Marauder at heart and he's proud to have their names belong to him. Because, okay, they're a little second-hand but together they're something new and he wears his name like a symbol, a sign that he's there, he's alive, and these two great men sacrificed everything for him.

He pulls off the pranking thing even more easily than they did, utilising his own natural intelligence and charm, Fred's cool logic and his friend Sebastian's incredible natural talent for lying.

There are only two ways in which he fails to live up to his grandfather's memory.

Exhibit a) James Sirius Potter is not hopelessly, desperately, and obviously in love with anyone.

Exhibit b) the fourth member of their little gang is – horror of horrors – a girl.

And yeah, Dominique's related to them, but still – a female?

But, you see, it's both of these things that are going to lead to his downfall.

* * *

It starts out when he catches Sebastian and Dominique snogging in a broom cupboard. And he supposes it's inevitable because Seb is the only member of their group that Dominique isn't related to, and Dom is certainly very pretty with her mane of red curls and her thundercloud-grey eyes with those long, thick red lashes and that mouth that can quirk sideways and send boys tumbling to their knees.

Dominique radiates beauty, and James hates her for it for a week.

He refuses to speak to either of them, aware he's behaving like a prat but not really caring. Fred remains neutral so James stops speaking to him as well and thus is left to wander around the school all by himself, seething and occasionally muttering aloud – although he denies this later.

This is how he finds her. He's striding angrily down a dark corridor, so annoyed with the world in general that he hasn't even bothered going to steal the invisibility cloak off Al – he almost wants to be caught.

He hears crying. This throws him briefly because he really hates other people being upset when he is too – he feels it diminishes the importance of his own upset-ness. But he's James and no matter what he pretends he's a nice guy right the way through, so he tracks the sound of crying to a small alcove and finds a girl curled up, her forehead against a window, as small sobs escape her rhythmically.

"Hey," James says awkwardly, crouching down next to her and reaching out a tentative hand to put on her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she replies instantly, shrugging his hand off without even looking at him. "I'm fine. Go away."

"Um, no," James retorts, sinking into a sitting position as he crams himself into the alcove with her. "Tell me what's wrong."

"It's none of your goddamn business, Potter," she snaps, and her eyes flick to meet his in a blaze of blueblueblue and he takes in the strands of blonde hair clinging to her wet cheeks and remembers who she is.

"Chloe," he says, and this time when he reaches out to clasp her shoulder he does so firmly so he can't be shaken off. "Tell me what the matter is."

His little sister's best friend glares at him, and James is somewhat disconcerted by the icy calm in her voice.

"James," she enunciates slowly, swinging around so she can look at him slowly, her eyes red and puffy in the moonlight. "Fuck off. Now."

"Bad language for such a little girl," he replies glibly, but she looks really, properly furious so he compromises and moves his hand to her jean-clad knee instead. "C'mon, tell me what the matter is."

"No," she says firmly, trying to pry his hand off. "You'll just tell Seb and then he'll go all crazy-over-protective-big-brother on me."

James ignores her and his fingers glide up to raise her chin gently but determinedly.

"I swear on my honour as a Gryffindor and a Potter than I will not breathe a word of your problem to anyone," he promises, looking her right in the eye and trying to remember that she's totally off limits because she's both little-sister's-best-friend and best-friend's-little-sister but mostly forgetting that when he notices that she has a devilish sparkle lurking around in the depths of her prettypretty eyes.

"Big promise," she sighs, trying to look away but finally giving up and meeting his gaze when his fingers refuse to move. "And it really isn't any of your business, you know. I don't know why you think I might tell you."

"Because, despite all appearances to the contrary, your wellbeing actually matters to me," James replies matter-of-factly, raising an eyebrow when she shoots him a disbelieving look. "You're best friends with Lily and when you're sad she's sad, which I don't like. And Seb's my best friend, ergo you are tied to me two separate ways and I thus care."

"You use too many words to say small things," she informs him, sizing him up, and James shrugs and his fingers glide mostly of their own volition from her chin to her cheek.

"Tell me," he murmurs coaxingly, his fingertips ghosting over her pale cheekbone. "It'll be good for you."

"It's sort of pathetic, really," she says, and he looks down and notices that she's got a tissue in her hands which she has wrung so much that it is thoroughly mangled.

"Tell me anyway," he replies, reaching down and taking her hands in his to stop her messing with the goddamn tissue. "I won't mind."

"It's just," she begins, looking down and not meeting his clear brown-eyed gaze. "It's just that Lily's got another boyfriend, and I… I've never even been kissed. And I'm jealous of her, so jealous that it actually hurts but I still love her because she's my best friend and she's like my sister and she doesn't do it deliberately but it still hurts and –"

"Stop talking," James says, and she's so unbearably endearing with her cheeks all aflame and her lashes divided like starfish by her tears and her eyes glittering with held-back tears that he entirely forgets to be angry that Lily has a boyfriend. "You'll be kissed. There are hundreds of boys who think you're really hot."

"Oh, yeah, right," she replies, and James is about to argue fiercely (and truthfully) that Fred has actually been eyeing her up for a while but not wanting to do anything about it because Lily might kill him – but then he finds himself fixated by this pale strip of skin that has appeared between her top and her jeans.

"Earth to James," she says, and there's the hint of a giggle in her voice that he's suddenly inordinately proud to be responsible for. "What are you staring at?"

"You," he says, and his tone is unexpectedly full of wonder. "You're beautiful."

"You're good at this whole cheering-up thing," she compliments, a shaky smile appearing on her lips as she squeezes his hands. He almost jumps, having quite forgotten that he'd taken her hands in his all that time ago. "Do you practice in front of the mirror or what?"

"Something like that," he breathes, and she's tilting her head to the side now and regarding him almost shyly – except she's Chloe Nott, and she doesn't do shy.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she inquires in a small voice, and James' eyes move to meet hers and in truly overdramatic-James-fashion, he thinks his heart might have even stopped beating.

"Because you're beautiful," he repeats, and she's looking slightly confused when he's suddenly leaning towards her, looming into her personal space and, acutely conscious that this is the first time she's been kissed and, Merlin, he wants to kiss her better than anybody ever will in the future.

"What are you –" she begins, but then his hands are sliding into her hair and he's bringing his mouth to hers, pressing down softly and firmly and feeling the gasp of wonder that escapes her all the way down in his soul.

* * *

He floats back to his common room and around school for the next week in a haze of too-strong feelings and self-arguments. He's suddenly utterly grateful for Seb and Dom being too wrapped up in themselves and for Fred working too hard to get a pretty little Hufflepuff called Katherine to go out with him to notice him constantly disappearing off. And Lily is too absorbed in her new boyfriend to notice Chloe's regular absences, so there's that to be grateful for too.

They steal moments at the top of the Astronomy Tower, in the Room of Requirement, sometimes just sitting and talking, sometimes teasing each other, sometimes arguing, sometimes just snogging until all James can see, hear, feel is Chloe and Chloe's laugh and Chloe's eyes and Chloe's hair and Chloe's sweet scent and Chloe.

And, Merlin, he's pathetic because the one thing he's been able to hold up to separate himself from his grandfather is that he's not hopelessly and pathetically in love with a pretty, sarcastic girl with a sharp wit and a kind heart.

Now he's going to have to give even that up, and console himself with the fact that at least she's not a redhead.


End file.
